Being in the right system at the right time

Just as I think the evening is over I am called out to high-sec to bring in one last ship. Fin made the journey in her freighter back to our base system but couldn't endure a return trip with more ships, instead bringing back just the one. But there are two more ships left by the Charon that wait in high-sec dock just outside the class 3 system connecting to our C4, and I can help by getting the Bustard transport ship home. It's only a couple of jumps there and back, and the C3 has been devoid of activity so far, nothing can go wrong.

Despite the lack of any other ships for the whole evening I still look for them, to be on the safe side. 'Fin! Check d-scan!' I'm warping across the C3 and can't stop, so am asking for confirmation of what I've just seen. But Fin doesn't see it. That isn't surprising, because it's not there. I have a task to complete and jump out of the system to high-sec to collect the Bustard, but d-scan results persist across session changes. As I warp to dock in the station I peruse d-scan again, scrolling slowly over the results. I've been known to overlook the obvious before, and I am occasionally a little shaky with my alphabet, but it really isn't there. The C3 tower's force field is gone.

I know the tower had shields earlier. Looking for the force field is the easiest way to determine how many active towers are in a system, particularly on a list of alphabetically sorted results when there are so many differently named tower types. And now I can no longer see it. Warping the Bustard back through the C3 confirms this, the tower having gone off-line. And as it was an active tower there are corporate hangar and ship maintenance arrays to be plundered. I didn't look for it earlier, but now I care where the tower is located.

Stowing the Bustard at our tower I swap for my Tengu strategic cruiser, still hoping that I am not wrong and about to fly in to some active defences. Fin joins me and we jump in to the C3, splitting our attentions in locating the tower. I note that the third and fourth planets have a dozen moons and suggest we search one each, and before long we are both around the first moon of the fourth planet, looking at the beautiful sight of an off-line tower with all its assets intact. We get in range and start shooting, reducing the ship arrays to rubble before turning our attention to the other modules.

It is unbelievable to think that we stumble across the C3 just as the tower runs out of fuel. The system doesn't even seem abandoned, as there is a labelled jet-can apparently containing bookmarks only a few days old. Of course, this also presents a danger, as the occupants could return at any time, either alerted by the lack of fuel or our attack, and ambush us. But, to be honest, I don't think many pilots log out in w-space in a combat ship, and the two of us are in quite capable Tengu cruisers. We should be safe. And the corporation we're stealing from, Mintek Heavy Exploration, looks to be more focussed on mining and manufacturing than combat.

An Apocalypse battleship spews from the ship array, along with a Covetor mining barge, Osprey cruiser, an Iteron Mark III, several Heron frigates, and a couple of salvaging destroyers. The Reaper rookie ship outside of the hangars is already a wreck, shot as soon as I got here. The corporate hangar has even more goodies for us, launching cans in to space containing many dozens of fittings, including a couple of faction fittings, some faction tower defences, an armoured warfare mindlink implant, and plenty of ore. The mobile laboratory also holds some small treasures, releasing a bunch of ammunition and drone blueprints, all originals, many already researched. Now we just have to get it all home.

At least it is just the one jump back to our system. The Iteron hauler is piloted in, as is the Apocalypse, whilst the recently returned Bustard is fitted with cargo expanders and taken to start grabbing loot. It will take a little while to make all the trips, though, and I apologise for keeping Fin up late. 'It's okay', she says, 'I'm glad you spotted it. I was just looking for other ships'. I admit that I generally am also only using d-scan to see other ships, but that this time something seemed off, and Fin laughs. 'The force field was off', she replies, and I don't quite stifle a groan at her wordplay.

The Bustard can hold over a jet-can's volume in its hold, but we have several full cans to pick up, if we want to get everything. Our static wormhole remains healthy, despite all our trips, so it will survive a return trip by an Orca. The industrial command ship is taken in to the C3 and pulls the frigates, ore, and most of the fittings in to its dedicated bays. Only a couple more trips are needed to collect the remaining ships, and the tower is stripped bare of all modules, ships, and fittings. All that is left are the bare bones of the tower itself and its anchored defences, which we can realistically do nothing with. We are the piranhas of w-space.

Today's lesson is to keep careful watch on the tower's fuel. The force field is all that keeps opportunistic capsuleers from taking anything they can, and only a fuelled tower can maintain a force field and other defences. This is a lesson I hope I never learn the hard way, as Mintek Heavy Exploration probably soon will. In other news, our own sparse fittings tab is now looking rather healthy, full of armour, shield, and propulsion modules that we were lacking. No doubt we will need to buy some specific items still, but looting a tower has certainly been quicker and much cheaper than visiting Jita.

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Tags: apocalypse, bustard, covetor, eve online, heron, iteron, mmorpg, orca, osprey, penny ibramovic, tengu, w-space

Building our capability

Fin's been scanning, and has found an oddity. The first class 3 w-space system she found connected by our static wormhole had an exit to low-sec empire space, which is far from unusual, but collapsing that wormhole to get a second one results in a C3 with an exit to high-sec. I had stopped believing they existed, but at least now I can go shopping. When thinking about how best to ambush a Hulk, a slim possibility yesterday, I realised that our newly installed hangar has few options for ship fittings.

We have brought in some odds and ends that we both had lying around, and our ships are fully fitted, but there is little option to reconfigure a ship without first stripping down another. The situation is not ideal and I made a short list of items we could probably use several of, so that we aren't wasting time hopping between ships looking for the right tool for the job. Any exit to empire space is suitable for shopping in my Crane transport ship, but a high-sec destination should make visiting a hub quicker.

Finding a hub is certainly easy, as I exit w-space to be only eight jumps from Jita. I am also fourteen jumps from the rest of my ships, making me think heading to market is probably the better option for now. But the high-sec route is convenient, and Fin finds a parked freighter to load up as many ships as possible. The one long and slow journey in the Charon is quicker than separate trips in all of the ships combined, and will mean we only need to recover the ships from a local station and jump in to w-space.

My shopping is straightforward. I pick up some warp disruptors, warp scramblers, target painters, sensor dampers, and stasis webifiers for our pointy ships, and local and remote armour repair modules of various sizes for utility. Fin asks me to get some crystals for lasers, whatever they are, and then to fill up my hold with mechanical parts, fuel for the tower. Jita has everything, even if it may not be the absolute cheapest option, and the convenience of shopping in one station is worth paying for. I load up the Crane and go back to the exit system, jumping back in to w-space and getting home without problem.

The neighbouring class 3 w-space system is occupied but quiet. I was here around eight months ago, and at the time I was only passing through. I noted that there is a tower in the system but not its location, which is all I do today too. I have no desperate need to find the tower, particularly as there is only the ridiculously named Reaper rookie ship visible on my directional scanner, although my notes also point out that a corporation ship and pod was lost in this system. The occupants may be a threat, but not if they are absent, and that's all I need to know for now.

Fin's Charon freighter makes it to the high-sec system and unloads the ships it has brought across from our base system. I strip to my pod and jump back out to empire space to dock. With the intermediate w-space system currently inactive I first take the less stealthy ships in to our home C4, making trips for two Basilisk logistic ships, and a Hawk and Vengeance assault ship. I leave the ships that can warp cloaked until last, in case the C3 occupants wake up, but the Manticore stealth bomber and Pilgrim recon ship see nothing changed on d-scan either.

It has been a quiet but positive evening. Our presence in w-space is getting more threatening, with more ships brought in to the tower as well as some modules that should increase our combat effectiveness. We still have more ships to bring, and our fittings store leaves much to be desired until it can be considered for general purpose use. It is difficult to know what you are missing until you need it, and we could probably use armour, shield, and propulsion modules, and more utility fittings like expanded cargoholds. Maybe we could even use some rock and gas mining options. But I'm not going to expect this to happen suddenly, and we continue to make good progress in being a productive duo.

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Tags: basilisk, charon, crane, eve online, hawk, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, reaper, vengeance, w-space

Back to shooting Sleepers

All is quiet. As looks to be part of a new routine, my first task is to scan the class 4 w-space system for any changes. Although the system had to stabilise on my arrival that doesn't preclude a wormhole having connected to us earlier, and it is good to know if we may have some nosy neighbours. I still have my list of sites from a previous full scan of the home system, and there are some changes. Only five signatures now accompany the three anomalies, and I resolve one ladar and three gravimetric sites along with the current static wormhole. I update my bookmarks, deleting those for sites no longer present, before warping to the wormhole to see what the adjacent class 3 system holds today.

My directional scanner shows me a Badger hauler briefly, before disappearing on a subsequent d-scan. There is no tower visible, but I have been in this system before and my notes list a tower as being out of d-scan range. I bookmark the wormhole home and warp away, finding the tower unmoved from three months ago. A piloted Hulk exhumer sits inside the shields next to an unoccupied Armageddon battleship, but promptly vanishes as the Badger seen minutes before warps in to the safety of the tower's shields. I didn't see if the Hulk warped away or not, and the thought of catching a miner so soon after moving back in to w-space is exciting, so I move to the inner system but see no sign of the ship on d-scan.

Warping back to the tower finds no trace of the Badger now either, which suggests I entered moments after their mining operation finished. I may not have a miner to catch, but at least I can be fairly confident that the occupants won't be active for at least a short while. I scan peacefully, finding the C3 to be kept quite clean. I resolve the gravimetric site the Hulk must have been mining in, and I warp in to bookmark a rock or two in case of its return, along with a magnetometric site. There is not much to plunder here. The system's static wormhole leads to low-sec empire space, apparently a common feature of C3s our system connects to, but the exit system is too deep in low-sec and too far from home to make me consider bringing more ships in.

The only other signature in the class 3 system is an anomaly, and with the systems sleepy I collect my Tengu strategic cruiser from home to engage Sleepers for the first time since moving in to the C4. I am not used to fighting C3 Sleepers, though, and don't know the range of anomalies and their patterns like I do for class 4 systems. I am hoping my ignorance won't be an issue, as the Tengu can survive C4 Sleepers so it should be fine against their C3 variants. But when I have two battleships and four frigates all webbing my cruiser, a ship that relies on mitigating damage with its speed, my shields take quite a pounding. It doesn't help that I am getting in to the habit of ignoring the Argos guns—they despawn with the site and, as they drop no loot and cannot be salvaged, only waste ammunition.

But my shields cope with the constant barrage of damage, and my heavy assault missiles are quick to take down the frigates. Sleeper battleships take longer to pop, but their armour is whittled down and I'm not in any great hurry. My main concern is with the range of my HAMs. I remember taking Pengu in to a C3 before and being unable to engage webbing cruisers that like to maintain a distance beyond the range of my missiles. If I am likely to be facing Sleepers alone regularly I should consider changing the heavy assault missiles for standard heavy missiles, which have a much better range albeit with a lower rate-of-fire.

Overall, combat is smooth this evening, even if I trigger secondary and tertiary waves earlier than is optimal. I keep a vigilant watch on d-scan, in case the occupants return or a tourist ventures in through the open connection to low-sec, but no one appears. Just the one anomaly means I am stowing my Tengu after only a brief sortie, getting my Cormorant destroyer out to salvage the wrecks. At least I return safely with the sixty million ISK or so of loot, and hopefully I am starting to get back in to the habit of making iskies.

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Tags: armageddon, badger, cormorant, eve online, hulk, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Almost ready for anything

It looks like the class 4 w-space pulsar system we have claimed is going to be ours uncontested. A routine check of my directional scanner shows that the previous occupants' tower has been renamed, now called 'bye bye'. I imagine the loss of so many expensive assets is too much to recover from quickly, and the construction of our tower an unknown threat to them, and they are abandoning the system. That's one less problem to worry about.

With the previous activity I make another full scan of all signatures in the system, noting a couple of changes but mostly the same gravimetric and ladar sites present. The one guaranteed change is the new position of the static wormhole, which I warp to and jump through to start looking for an exit so we can bring more ships in. The neighbouring class 3 w-space system has a Falcon recon ship in the system, although it disappears from my directional scanner within a few seconds. I find a tower, where a pod pilot sets a refinery operational before boarding a Bustard transport ship, and start looking for wormholes. The Bustard warps away from the tower as I scan, giving me hope that there is an exit to high-sec empire space, but I only find one going out to low-sec.

Another class 3 with an exit to low-sec empire space makes me wonder if we'll ever get a decent connection to high-sec, but checking the exit finds it to be nowhere near as bad as previous exits. The system is one of a pair in a low-sec island surrounded by high-sec, and only three hops from a market hub and seven to our high-sec staging system. This may be as good as it gets for a while and I start making plans to bring some of my ships in to our new w-space home. As I consider my options the pilot in the Bustard returns, warping to the wormhole and jumping in to the C3, although he doesn't notice my presence as I am sitting cloaked in my Buzzard covert operations boat. I wait a little while, for the Bustard to warp away on the other side, before jumping back myself. I ditch my ship at the tower and take my pod out to my docked ships.

I am pleased to see no one lurking near the gate linking low-sec to high-sec and the few jumps pass uneventfully. My first ship choice is my Crane, which I have stocked with ammunition and some other modules of particular use, and I take the transport ship back to w-space. Jumping in to the C3 is interesting, though, as a Manticore stealth bomber appears on my overview, along with a bomb. The pilot obviously has waited for a ship to jump in to his sights, seen the wormhole flare, and launched. But I have been educated about the session change cloak and know that it makes a ship impervious to any attempts to damage or decloak it. I am far from worried. Indeed, I even take the time to check my distance from the wormhole, happy to see that I have appeared over four kilometres away from it, easily over the two kilometre limit that means I can activate my cloak as soon as I start to move.

I watch the bomb glide along its path towards me and wait for it to explode to no effect. I then move away from the wormhole and cloak with practiced ease. I don't even wait for the session change timer to end, as I know the Manticore has no chance of catching my Crane. I simply warp to the K162 on my route and jump home with no drama. The stealth bomber watches my ship move and cloak and, almost with a shrug as it realises there is nothing more it can do, cloaks too. It may have been ineffective then but it could present a problem for my less stealthy ships. I don't want to resign to the Manticore's presence, though, as there are plenty more ships I want to get in to w-space and this exit is the best opportunity so far. And Fin gives me an idea.

A second trip out in my pod gets me to my ships, where I board my Malediction interceptor for the trip home. If the Manticore is still waiting for me he won't be getting away. I can close on his ship and disrupt his warp engines before he knows what hit him, and Fin can be called if I need some extra firepower to shoot the message home. But I jump in to the class 3 system without interference, perhaps the Manticore pilot not wanting to waste more bombs. At least the route is clear now, and I head out and in a few more times to get my Tengu strategic cruiser and Curse recon ship home to w-space. But taking my pod out one last time sees the Falcon and Manticore on d-scan, along with seven core scanning probes. Our movements have finally made the neighbours eager to find the source.

Thinking about the utility of the ships I now have in w-space, the ones I have available in high-sec dock to take, and those that Fin has at her command, we jointly decide that my Onyx heavy interdictor will add nicely to our complement of ships. It would help more if I can get it home unmolested. But the Onyx has a heavy buffer tank that can take all kinds of abuse before exploding, and with Fin sitting on the wormhole in our system in my Curse, ready to strike if needed, I don't think the Manticore or Falcon pose any credible threat. And, in fact, I still don't see them as I jump in to the C3 and warp homewards, meeting Fin on the other side of our wormhole.

There are more ships still to collect, but we have brought in a good collection this evening. We also now have a ship maintenance array to store them in, which is rather more useful than the fifth corporate hangar array bought by accident. I blame the names, as a hangar sounds more like somewhere a ship would be stored. At least now we are equipped to fight Sleepers, loot and salvage the wrecks, and engage many minor capsuleer threats or targets. We're settling in nicely.

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Tags: bustard, buzzard, crane, curse, eve online, falcon, malediction, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Starting to get settled

One day in and we've already been attacked. Two defences have been incapacitated and the tower itself has been tested, although only the shields were damaged and the system's pulsar phenomenon makes them stronger. Setting up a few external defences without guns first in place turns out to be a minor lapse in judgement, one we won't make again. The attack is also now hours old and, although it probably wasn't a good idea to leave the system before, we can now explore, to find the K162 wormhole that brought our attackers as well as looking for an exit we can use to bring in more guns and ships.

The two wormholes in our system are found, and I bookmark the static connection to the class 3 system without jumping through. I am more keen to trace back through the K162, coming from a C3 itself, to see what kind of threat remains to our presence in w-space. I jump in to the system to see an active tower and a dozen or so ships on my directional scanner, and I start looking for them. The tower is easy enough to find, as are all the ships, as they sit unpiloted inside the tower's shields. But I notice a Raven battleship on d-scan that isn't at the tower, but only briefly before it vanishes from my passive scanner. I also notice that the owners of this tower are not members of the same corporation as the pilot who shot our tower.

The Raven has gone but a Buzzard covert operations boat appears on d-scan, and stays there a while. I try to locate him, and think I have his position around a moon, but he is in empty space. I wouldn't think a Buzzard would need to find a safe spot to avoid detection, so I launch probes to see if there is another wormhole in the system. My d-scan location narrowed down the ship's position sufficiently to get a good hit on a wormhole immediately, which resolves to be the system's static connection, exiting to high-sec empire space. And as I bookmark its location, and note that it is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, the wormhole flares. An Armageddon and three Dominix battleships appear, the squad warping away as one.

I am concerned about the appearance of such powerful ships here, particularly after the earlier attack on our tower. I haven't got my bearings quite yet and don't know if the ships warped off towards the wormhole leading homewards, but warping there myself doesn't see any ships nor the wormhole flaring. Fin reports no activity in the home system, which is a relief, but I don't know where the ships have gone. I continue scanning and find what I had hoped, a second wormhole, coming in from a class 4 system. It looks like the ships seen here have only been making use of the exit to empire space. And with the activity explained Fin decides to do the same, taking her Crane transport ship out of the aging wormhole to collect some assets. I head in the other direction, back across our home system and through its static wormhole.

Our neighbouring C3 has an on-line tower for a change. Although there are no ships or pilots to be seen there are plenty of signatures present in the system, enough to make me wonder if I really have missed being mostly self-reliant, as I resolve and ignore a whole lot of rocks and gas. I finally find a wormhole, and it is again an exit to low-sec empire space. The exit system is inconvenient, naturally, being close to more low-sec and some null-sec, and quite far from where my ships sit docked. I turn around and jump back in to w-space, where I wait for Fin to return, leaving the recovery of my ships for another day.

But maybe in waiting I'm being lazy. I have some time and there are plenty of ships to bring back, I could at least make the journey once. So I leave my Buzzard at the tower and take my bare pod out to empire space, auto-pilot programmed with the route to the high-sec system where my ships are, and I start making the jumps. It takes a while but I get there, where I board my Widow black ops ship, which I think should be able to get through the two low-sec hops with its ability to cloak, and head straight back again. The journey for me is uneventful, although the wormhole Fin used has died and she needs to rendezvous with me to get back home. The two exit systems are only seven jumps apart, which isn't too much of a diversion.

I am also rethinking my idea that the Widow alone will be safe from attacks. The ship may be able to cloak but it is still a battleship and takes a while to align, as well as there being a small window when entering warp where a ship can lock on and disrupt my engines as the cloak drops. The large hull will make locking times short as well, and a quick boat will even be able to intercept and 'bump' me, breaking my cloak before I am even aligned. Of course, this is only if there is anyone waiting, and the low-sec systems seemed quiet when I passed through them on the way out.

As we have met up for me to share the bookmarks of the route inwards, Fin kindly volunteers to take her more agile and stealthy Crane in to low-sec first, to scout ahead for me. Luckily, the systems remain clear, although Fin mentions a 'red' ship decloaks at a gate when seeing my Widow warp away. But he is avoided and we both make it back in to w-space and home safely. And almost forty jumps is enough for me today, so I get settled in my Widow and get some rest, as a few guns are put in place around the tower.

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Tags: armageddon, buzzard, crane, dominix, eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, raven, scanning, w-space, widow

Sticking a flag in our pulsar home

My communication is received and two Orcas are moved fifteen jumps through high-sec, waiting for my return. It is a few hours after finding a route out from the class 4 w-space system we're looking to move in to, passing through a spider of a class 3 system, and we are hoping the earlier activity of roaming capsuleers has dissipated. I warm up the systems of my Buzzard covert operations boat and start jumping through wormholes, scouting for ships as I move along the proposed route out to empire space.

I find no signs of activity along the route between high-sec and the C4 pulsar system, but one of the connecting wormholes is now reaching the end of its natural lifetime, which presents a risk. We probably still have an hour or so left before the wormole collapses, but I am trepidatious. It has taken us a while, and plenty of scouting, to find this class 4 system suitable for occupation and I have spent another week or so parked inside waiting for a convenient exit to appear. It would be disheartening to become isolated from the system because a wormhole collapses behind me.

I make a rush from the wormhole to empire space, stopping in dock only as long as it takes to trade bookmarks with glorious leader Fin, controller of the Orca industrial command ships, before heading straight back to w-space and through the EOL connection. I am glad to find it remains, having had others disappear on me however briefly my exit to w-space, and I wait on the other side of the wormhole to keep an eye on the directional scanner in case of hostile ships entering the system.

As I wait I take my warp scrambler module off-line and use the freed ship resources to power a web instead. It takes a fair amount of capacitor energy to put a module on-line in the field, but I currently have it to spare. And once the Orcas appear through the wormhole I use the web to help sling the ponderous ships in to warp, speeding our journey. The wormholes survive, the systems remain clear, and we all make it safely in to the pulsar system. I warp us all to a safe spot I made on my first day in the system before heading off to find a suitable moon to anchor our tower around.

When asked what considerations I should give to selecting a moon Fin gives a vague enough reply to suggest that there aren't any out in w-space. One moon is as good as another, it seems, which I can understand. It is trivial to find any tower using only passive methods, and active scanning with combat scanning probes will locate one even more quickly. I look for a planet in a relatively central position, warping to one of its moons to see what it looks like. And it looks good, but I think I can do better, judging by the solar system map. I warp to a second moon, finding our new home. A ringed planet, a moon in silhouette, and the pulsar combine to create a startling backdrop.

An Orca warps in to my position and anchors our tower, which then needs to be fuelled. There is an apology when it is found we don't have any robotics, but a quick trip to market in a Crane transport ship—brought inside one of the Orcas—returns through the still-alive route to high-sec with the missing element. The fuel bay is stocked and our tower's force field is brought on-line. Shields up! We're home at last. Now I need sleep, there is much to do tomorrow.

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Tags: buzzard, crane, eve online, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, w-space

A cornucopia of connections

I'm up early to see if there is a potential route in to this class 4 w-space system from empire space. If I scan an exit out of here there could be a later possibility of getting the tower in and establishing our presence. And I'm not alone today, a second Buzzard covert operations boat appearing on my directional scanner along with some probes. It looks like a wormhole has connected in to this system, which could bring more than a simple cov-ops boat. I launch my own probes to start scanning.

My current set of bookmarks for the system lets me ignore most signatures, leaving only two I don't recognise. The first is the new static wormhole to a class 3 w-space system, the second resolving to be a K162 from a C4. I note the location of the K162 then warp and jump in to the C3 to fulfil my primary objective of finding an exit. I can worry about possible hostilities later, which will only be a concern if a convenient exit can actually be found.

Like previous days, the C3 system holds an off-line tower, and I suspect I will find an exit to low-sec space. And it looks like I've found it straight away, as a wormhole appears almost on top of the one I jump through, but it turns out to be an outbound connection to a C4. It may not be the static wormhole but it is good to find now, rather than potentially ignoring the signature and not knowing of the additional connection. I continue scanning, looking for the system's static wormhole, and find a second link. Again, it's not a static connection but another outbound wormhole, this time to a class 5 w-space system. This C3 seems busy.

More scanning reveals a 3rd wormhole from a C4, then a fourth that's outbound to a C3, a fifth outbound to a C4, and a sixth coming from null-sec space. The seventh wormhole is finally the system's static wormhole, which indeed links to low-sec empire space. I have not known a system to bristle with so many wormholes! The number of connections is unprecedented and could potentially bring a lot of capsuleers in to this nexus, making transport ships more vulnerable, but it also offers options. The low-sec exit system is not too far from our base but will have our ships pass through Tama, which I believe to be a dangerous system to travel through, and encourages me to check the other connections for a better exit.

I have plenty of options to choose to scan a new exit. My first choice is the outbound C3 connection, thinking that the lower-class system is more likely to lead me to empire space. There are plenty of signatures to sift through, and I end up finding a K162 from a class 5 system and a static exit to null-sec space, neither of which looks better than what I've already found. I head back in to the nexus C3 to jump through to one of the outbound C4 systems, but as I am deciding which wormhole to choose a routine check of d-scan reveals a Heron frigate somewhere. A second check still sees the Heron uncloaked, as does a third, and it looks to me like the pilot has been negligent. I am only in a Buzzard myself, but it is fitted with rockets and I may be able to remind the Heron about the benefits of cloaking.

D-scan puts the Heron away from celestial objects, which either places him in a safe spot or on a wormhole. Assuming he's on a wormhole narrows down my search to one of the two wormholes almost on top of each other, but I cannot work out which one. I warp to the K162 home first, dropping my cloak early to shake off the targeting delay on the assumption that the uncloaked Heron pilot also probably isn't watching d-scan. I don't find the ship on the K162, so warp to the other of the two wormholes, where the Heron indeed sits uncloaked. I get my warp disruption modules hot and ready my weapon systems for when I drop out of warp and can use them. I am expecting the Heron to wake up and jump through the wormhole to try to flee, and I am ready to give chase.

I lock the Heron and my rockets start hitting home, making dents in the shields of the frigate. This could be a lengthy and tedious encounter, but as long as I am victorious at the end I'm willing to put in the time. But it's not going to be one-sided, as the Heron has weapons fitted too and returns fire, although I imagine my Buzzard to be hardier than its lesser-engineered relative. The wormhole flares as I expect and I prepare to chase the Heron through to the C4 beyond, but he is still shooting me and can't have jumped. Instead, a Pilgrim recon ship joins in the fight, locking and sending its drones towards me, as a Hound also decloaks to help reduce me to dust.

Okay, I won't win this fight, and I imagine I've just been suckered in to an ambush, but with a calm that surprises me I simply jump through the wormhole. As I regain my senses in the class 4 system I note a lack of ships on my overiew and so move away from the wormhole and cloak, pulsing my reheat as I do, even before the session change timer ends. The wormhole flares behind me as at least one pilot gives chase, but I don't think he was even fast enough to see my ship in the couple of seconds it was visible. I loiter long enough to see the Heron decloak looking for me, and to bookmark the wormhole for reference, before warping away. I want to explore this system anyway, I can easily take my time doing so rather than worrying about getting home just yet.

The class 4 system is unoccupied and only has a few signatures to resolve, letting me find a K162 from a C3 and the static wormhole to a C2 without fuss. The connection to a class 2 system is enticing, as it promises an exit from w-space, and I jump through to take a look. A tower but no ships can be seen on d-scan, but as I move away from the wormhole the connection flares behind me, the Pilgrim from earlier appearing briefly before cloaking. I warp away to launch probes safely and start to scan, paying the recon ship no mind. Only three signatures in the system makes scanning easy again, resolving the static wormholes to be a connection reaching the end of its natural lifetime leading in to a C3 and, rather pleasingly, an exit to high-sec empire space.

Jumping in to high-sec puts me fourteen jumps from our base system, but it is at least a journey through high-sec all the way. I note the system and bookmark the wormhole before jumping back to w-space. I head back to the nexus C3 to investigate the second linked class 4 system. The Hound stealth bomber sits ten kilometres away from one of the wormholes when I jump in to a system, and I wait for the session change timer to end before moving away and cloaking cleanly. I approach the other connections with caution but see no other ships, and am in the second C4 system soon enough.

I've been in this class 4 system before, four months ago, which is the first time I've seen a familiar system since leaving the corporation's class 4 home. It remains unoccupied and holds a static connection to another C4. Rather than delve deeper in to w-space I turn around and aim towards home, the C4 pulsar system, avoiding more ships seen on d-scan to get back safely. There has been plenty to find and we have options. The entrance through the high-sec system is viable but relies on activity dying down, which is likely to happen within a few hours. And if the ousted occupants of the pulsar C4 suddenly resurface there are two more class 4 systems currently connected that I can move to. For now, I send a communication detailing what I've found to my w-space partner and get some rest.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on A cornucopia of connections
Tags: buzzard, eve online, heron, hound, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, scanning, w-space

What a racket

Penny Ibramovic > Welcome, Charles.
Penny Ibramovic > That's a nice sec status you've got there. Would be a shame if something happened to it.
Charles Stone > been carebearing way too much.
Penny Ibramovic > Maybe if you keep up the payments... know what I'm sayin'?

Penny Ibramovic > I'm, uh... I'm not seein' my wallet blink here, Charlie.
* Charles Stone shivers
Penny Ibramovic > An' it's not a settings problem.
Penny Ibramovic > Oh, wait. It is a settings problem.

Penny Ibramovic > You're alright, Charlie. Welcome to the corp.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on What a racket
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Looking for an exit

The class 4 w-space system I am hoping to make home is stabilising as I wake up. This is good, as it means no one else is in the system. A quick scan in my Buzzard covert operations boat confirms that there is no change in the system. And, in theory, the wormhole I resolved yesterday should still be in the same place, despite having a lifetime of sixteen hours. Refraining from warping to its position is supposed to keep a wormhole dormant, and warping to the bookmark I made yesterday indeed brings me to the C247 connection, full of life.

There is opportunity today to bring an Orca industrial command ship in to the pulsar system in order to set up a tower, but that will only happen if a suitable exit to empire space can be found, and time is a factor. Jumping through the wormhole finds me in an unoccupied class 3 w-space system with an off-line tower and nothing else, which is a good start. Scanning resolves a wormhole soon enough, but it leads to low-sec space, which could be a problem.

Jumping in to the destination system puts my ship seventeen hops from our base system, and four jumps from high-sec, which is a fair amount of low-sec space to pass through in an Orca. The intervening systems are apparently active, too, which scuppers plans for getting assets in to the C4. I take myself back in to w-space and park in our intended home system, to look for an exit again tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, and again the class 4 pulsar system stabilises on my appearance. We now have an additional anomaly spawned in the system, but we will only be able to make use of that if we can get ships in, and the tower with its storage and defensive capabilities. With the system's resources mostly static and mapped it is easy enough to find the new wormhole leading to the connecting class 3 system, and I warp to it and jump through.

As yesterday, the C3 holds an off-line tower and is otherwise empty. Having no occupation gives the Sleepers free rein, giving me plenty of signatures to sift through, and some gravimetric sites look suspiciously like wormholes. But I eventually resolve the static connection, and it is another exit to low-sec empire space. I wonder if C3 systems are more likely to lead to low-sec or if there is perhaps a stronger connection where the particular C4 I come from has a tendency to link to C3s with an exit to low-sec.

I jump out to empire space to check the destination system, and it is less convenient than yesterday. Twenty-eight jumps will take me back to our high-sec base system, with twenty-one of them through low-sec. Adjusting the auto-pilot settings reduces the number of low-sec jumps to eight and only increasing the total to thirty, but that is still mighty inconvenient. All becomes clear when I realise I am in the Aridia region, one I have exited w-space in to before, and one that is deep in low-sec space.

It doesn't look like we'll be moving any assets today either. I head back in to the C3 to look in hope for any further wormholes, perhaps a K162 coming from a class 2 system with a nifty connection to high-sec space, but all I find is a K162 wormhole on the verge of collapse and coming from a C4. It looks like I may need as much patience to get set up in the new home system as I did when looking for it in the first place. I just hope I don't also need to rely on the same luck.

Posted in Gaming | 5 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, eve online, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Taking a look around

I wake up in w-space for the first time in a while, and by myself. The class 4 pulsar system is empty apart from my own ship, and what was left behind after the corporation plundered the off-line assets of the previous occupants. Or maybe they are still current occupants, merely facing a set-back; I'm not sure about that just yet. I warp my Buzzard covert operations boat from the safe spot I'm hiding in to the off-line tower, noting there is still no shield, no ships, and no apparent change. It looks like we still have a window to claim this system for ourselves.

I am here alone, though, and I need to scan an exit to empire space so that our new tower can be brought in and anchored. Before that is done I can stake no more a claim in this system than any other passing ship. I launch probes and begin to scan, although I'm looking for more than any wormholes. I am expecting to scan this system several times over the next few days and I need to be aware of changes more than simply finding an exit.

If I know what all of the signatures in the system are I can ignore them, and additional signatures can be quickly determined and resolved, either adding new resources to the system or indicating potential visitors entering through newly spawned wormholes. Scanning, therefore, is thorough this first day. I don't list what signatures I find and ignore them, but resolve and bookmark every one in the system. Any changes from today will be readily discernable and a good early indication of activity.

I end up with twelve bookmarks. Three anomalies, four gravimetric sites, and four ladar sites are present. The twelfth signature is the only wormhole in the system, so it must be the static connection. I don't warp to the wormhole to bookmark its true location, instead recording the proximate cosmic beacon, so that the connection remains dormant for now. I know I am supposed to be looking for an exit to get our assets in place, but without Fin available there can be no such operation.

For now I am content to see no change in the C4 system, and no activity. The system is mapped for today and this initial scanning exercise will make subsequent scans more efficient. I warp my Buzzard back to its hiding place and go dark, enjoying the peace of unknown space.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Taking a look around
Tags: buzzard, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space